They have come from halfway across the world and are kept under tight security and raised according to the strictest rules.
They are five pure red heifers without blemish who have never worked, given birth, been milked or worn a yoke.
These red heifers and the archaic ritual they were brought to Israel for stand at the heart of a convoluted effort by a segment of ultranationalist Jews to destroy the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, the third holiest site in Islam that has stood on a hill in the Old City of Jerusalem for more than 1,000 years, and replace it with a “Third Temple”.
This minority ultranationalist push flies in the face of Jewish scholarship, which rules that a “Third Temple” can only be constructed after the coming of the awaited Messiah to usher in the “Kingdom of God” – not to bring about the return of the Messiah to Earth.
Members of these “Temple Movement” groups are also pushing to perform Jewish rites in the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, in violation of the chief rabbinate’s longstanding prohibition of the presence of Jews at Al-Aqsa due to the holiness of the site.
Heifer prophecy
According to the Old Testament, the two Jewish temples that stood where the Al-Aqsa compound stands today were ritually pure as were all instruments, garments and people who served in them.